By Nicholas Chrastil | The Lens | January 20, 2021 Public defenders in Orleans Parish are hopeful that a new reform-minded district attorney, Jason Williams, will help them come up with innovative ways to address the thousands of open cases that are clogging the dockets at Criminal District Court due to months of COVID-19-related court closures…
By Travers Mackel | WDSU | January 15, 2021 CLICK FOR VIDEO A former client of both the newly installed Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams and a member of Williams’ leadership team entered a plea agreement Thursday that prompted a local watchdog group leader to allege a conflict of interest. Dan Bright had faced…
By Garey Forster | NOLA.com Contributing Columnist | January 13, 2021 When governors and mayors begin and end terms of office there are several objective data points to look at to determine if they will be or were successful in carrying out their duties. Budgets and taxes come to mind. When a new district attorney…
By Kevin McGill | Associated Press | January 11, 2021 NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans city council member took the oath of office as the city’s new district attorney Monday, facing a pandemic-related backlog of cases and high expectations from criminal justice reform advocates who rallied around him — despite his indictment on…
By Emily Lane and Greg LaRose | WDSU | January 7, 2021 CLICK FOR VIDEO LaRicha Roussell has slept next to her son’s football jersey each night since the eighth grader was shot dead on Christmas. Before gunfire killed her son, 14-year-old Ja-Mere Alfred, outside a Walgreens store in eastern New Orleans, his team had…
By Natasha Robin | WVUE | December 30, 2020 CLICK FOR VIDEO NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – “It’s getting out of control,” says a 7th Ward resident. A carjacking unfolds at six in the morning in the 2100 block of Lapeyrouse Street. As 2020 comes to an end, the violence that plaques the city continues. “In…
By Natasha Robin | December 24, 2020 CLICK FOR VIDEO Rafael Goyeneche of the Metropolitan Crime Commission says 200 people have now become homicide victims in the city of New Orleans. The 200th victim, a female, who police say may also be the suspect of an armed carjacking. Police say she was shot in the…
By Josh Roberson | WVUE | December 17, 2020 NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – On Thursday, the New Orleans Police Department, the FBI and Louisiana State Police met to discuss how they plan to combat the recent uptick in crime around the city. This comes as New Orleans is struggling to keep officers on the payroll.…
By Mike Perlstein | WWL-TV | December 17, 2020 NEW ORLEANS — Amid a surge in killings, shootings and carjackings in New Orleans over the past year, the NOPD abruptly changed its crime-fighting tactics, eliminating localized district task forces. In its place, the department formed a citywide crime-fighting squad known as the Violent Crime…
Thursday, December 17, 2020 NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – United States Attorney Peter G. Strasser announced that ANTHONY ROBINSON (“A. ROBINSON”), age 67; AUDREY HARRIS (“HARRIS”), age 53; JERRY SCHAFFER (“SCHAFFER”), age 66; and KEISHIRA ROBINSON (“K. ROBINSON”), age 26, of New Orleans, Louisiana entered a plea of guilty today to Conspiracy to Commit Mail Fraud,…